The new Harrison Park that will soon grace the east bank of the Olentangy River just north of
Downtown is the latest piece of a plan to complete the Harrison West neighborhood.

The transformation has been years in the making, turning a once-downtrodden area into a trendy
neighborhood of renovated, colorful frame houses and immaculate gardens dotting its brick side
streets.

The parkland is a perfect example.

"That site was a blighted industrial area that was pulling down the entire area of the
neighborhood," said Jacob Sukosd, a Harrison West resident. "No one wanted to live next to an old
factory."

Work began last week on the 4.3-acre park between Quality Place and W. 2nd Avenue. It will
include a playground, a gazebo with a copper roof, a new lane for the Olentangy Trail and
sculptures designed by Columbus College of Art & Design students.

Residents gathered this summer to clean up the riverbank and will do so again on Saturday.

The park will cost a little more than $1 million, paid for with property taxes in the
district.

Residents persuaded Wagenbrenner Development to donate the parkland when the company began
building 62 brick houses and 138 condominiums, adding hundreds of people to a site where a
margarine factory once sat.

It's quite a difference from the Harrison West that Mary Funk once knew. She bought her
Pennsylvania Avenue house almost 30 years ago when the neighborhood was plagued by gang
violence.

She said the house cost $8,000. The 130-year-old duplex now is valued at $104,200.

"When we moved in, they were shooting out streetlights," said Funk, who works for Mayor Michael
B. Coleman.

The neighborhood has become desirable enough that in April photographer Lauryn Byrdy immediately
snapped up space at 3rd and Michigan avenues that once housed a yoga studio.

"I wanted to come to Harrison West," said Byrdy, 27, who shares the space with a hair salon,
wardrobe consultant and makeup artist.

"It's very neighborhood-oriented. Moms are walking their babies and dogs by every day," Byrdy
said.

A number of young professionals are making their homes there as well.

That includes Sukosd, who moved to Pennsylvania Avenue six years ago from the Brewery
District.

Sukosd, 30, who works at Worthington Industries, grew up in a small town in Harrison County in
eastern Ohio. He and his wife, Julie, wanted an affordable house, "something historic,
architecturally significant," he said.

Harrison West fit the bill.

"We thought it was improving greatly. It had a lot of room to go, but we thought it had even
more potential," Sukosd said.

The location is one reason Matt Williams, a Harrison West Society member, and his partner moved
from Clintonville to one of the new Harrison Park houses.

"We thought it was a better area for us," Williams said, citing the short distance to the Short
North and Grandview Heights.

Harrison West Society President Rob Harris calls his neighborhood "the backyard of the Short
North."

With Ohio State University just to the north, Lynn Varney's Harrison House Bed & Breakfast
on W. 5th Avenue attracts a good number of visitors.

She has owned it for four years and said she caters to Harrison West residents seeking to put up
guests as well as visiting speakers and interviewees at Ohio State and out-of-towners heading to
the nearby Short North.

Varney said she has no concerns about her patrons wandering the neighborhood.

"I tell people it's safe to walk to and from the Short North area," Varney said.

Professionals often are found drinking coffee or eating outdoors streetside at places such as
Caffe Apropos on W. 3rd Avenue and Katalina's Cafe Corner nearby.

Katalina's owner Kathleen Day said the walkable neighborhood appeals to transplants from New
York or the West Coast. Day herself likes that, too.

She's a German Village resident who sees Harrison West as an affordable alternative.

Harrison West leaders want city officials to recognize Harrison West as a destination
neighborhood, such as German Village, Day said. "They're so passionate about their community."